Deportation Gaining As Gang-fighting Tool

Critics Raise Civil Rights Questions

July 06, 1992|By Jack Houston.

A growing number of suburban police, determined to stem the tide of violence in some once-safe neighborhoods, are teaming up with federal immigration authorities to use deportation as a weapon against criminal street gangs.

But even as they do, the controversial practice, which has been forbidden in Chicago by executive order since 1985, is drawing fire from civil rights groups and others who contend the tactic often is misused to intimidate not just gang members but also law abiding citizens solely on the basis of their ethnicity.

``Not only is it a threat to resident aliens, it`s a threat to U.S. citizens of Hispanic descent,`` says Maria Valdez, an attorney for the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund, or MALDEF, in Chicago.

Still, the 41 suburbs that do it-from Waukegan to Elgin to Aurora to Joliet and Calumet Park-defend the practice, saying it is ridding their communities of troublemakers.

In Elgin, one of the towns more aggressively using the technique, police have turned over to immigration officials more than 100 legal and illegal immigrants involved in criminal gang activity in the last 2 1/2 years. The Police Department even provides office space to the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service.

In addition, the INS agents are given access to police files and often ride around with detectives looking for undocumented immigrants.

Raul Nadal, director of Centro de Informacion y Progreso, a Hispanic social service agency in Elgin, said he has no problem with the police and INS working hand-in-hand to rid the city of gang members.

But he said he doesn`t like the idea of the INS combing through police files and hunting down illegal immigrants for deportation.

The practice, Nadal said, only brings about misunderstanding and distrust in the community. ``It makes it difficult for community organizations to convince legal aliens that the police are their friends,`` he said.

``You have to remember that in Third World countries, the police are not trusted. We`re trying to break that mentality.``

Elsewhere, civil libertarians denounce any cooperation between police and the INS, saying it threatens law-abiding residents of the same neighborhoods victimized by the gangs.

In Chicago, Valdez said MALDEF receives numerous phone calls from people who are stopped and questioned by INS agents about their citizenship status, solely on the basis of their looks.

But A.D. Moyer, district INS director, rebuffs critics by saying that law-abiding immigrants need only fear the intimidation by street gangs. Many suburbs welcome the opportunity to work closely with immigration officials, Moyer said.

``You can circle Chicago. If we`re not working someplace, it`s because they don`t want to admit they have gangs,`` he said.

Since October 1991, about 870 immigrants arrested for gang-related crimes in the suburbs have been turned over to the INS for deportation hearings, according to Moyer.

Elgin, west suburban Stone Park and southwest suburban Summit contributed to about 42 percent of all INS apprehensions so far, totaling more than 100 cases each. About 13 percent of all INS activity in deporting suburban gang members takes place in Elgin, he said.

Immigrant gang members also have been turned over to the INS in double-digit numbers by Addison, Blue Island, Franklin Park, Hodgkins, Lisle, Northlake, Palatine, Prospect Heights, Rolling Meadows, Waukegan and West Chicago. The district INS office has 12 agents assigned to its Violent Gang Task Force. And 20 more agents have been approved by Washington for a stepped- up effort against violent street gangs here, Moyer said.

The INS figures don`t impress MALDEF, the Mexican American group in Chicago. ``As far as we know, the numbers are not substantiated,`` Valdez said.

Her organization is among several urging Mayor Richard Daley not to rescind the city`s executive order against police helping the immigration service.

Their petition came soon after the Chicago Crime Commission asked Daley to ``clarify`` his order by ``specifically authorizing the (police) to cooperate with INS investigations of street gangs and other criminal activity by illegal aliens.``

Though police and INS officials point to their numbers to show how effective their cooperative effort is, a recent incident involving an Elgin resident of Mexican descent shows how murky the issue can become.

On May 26, Detective Brad Entler, an Elgin youth officer, and INS agents Rick Matt and Kent Herstein stopped a Mustang convertible driven by Juan Velazquez and inquired about his immigrant status.

Velazquez, a U.S. citizen and resident of Elgin for 25 years, later related the incident in a complaint letter to his congressman, Republican Dennis J. Hastert.

At about 7:30 p.m. that Tuesday, he wrote, ``I encountered a most degrading and racist experience (that) was definitely harassment by these law enforcement officials.